Ethnic groups · pre-1822 and continuing
Gbandi people
Southwestern Mande farmers and traders of the upper Lofa, holding the road between Loma country and the Gola forest.
Biography
The Gbandi occupy the upper Lofa basin between the Loma highlands, the Kissi country and the Mende border, speaking a southwestern Mande language closely related to Loma and Mende. Their towns were stockaded and sited on ridges above the rice swamps, and their position on the north-western corridor made them intermediaries in the movement of kola, iron and country cloth toward the Gallinas and the Vai coast. Poro and Sande were strong among them, organised on a pattern shared with their Mende neighbours, and Gbandi smiths and dyers supplied a wide regional market. Islam reached Gbandi towns through Mandingo traders well before 1822 without displacing the initiation societies.
Historical significance
One of the sixteen principal peoples mapped in the atlas; Mande (southwestern) in language, with an economy built on upland and swamp rice and iron smithing.
Timeline
- pre-1500Gbandi settlement of the upper Lofa basin
- 17th–18th c.Corridor towns on the kola and iron road to the Gallinas
- pre-1822Islam reaches Gbandi towns through Mandingo traders
On the map
Associated with Kolahun. Open the historical atlas.
Related entries
References
- Holsoe 1971; Schwab 1947; Dunn, Beyan & Burrowes 2000
Suggested reading
- Dunn, Beyan & Burrowes (2000). Historical Dictionary of Liberia.